We’re a group of entrepreneurs in the Seattle area who give and seek advice on running technology startups. We meet about once or twice a month.

This is targeted at founders of, employees of, or those folks interested in joining local technology companies. Be ready to talk shop, get into technical arcana, and discuss the nitty-gritties of running/working at/launching a tech startup.

Subscribe to the email list for announcements and discussion, and to make job postings. (Moderated; list membership hidden)

It’s been a while since we did a technical topic at STS, but there’s been increasing awareness and interest in the NoSQL movement (e.g. Twitter moves from MySQL to Cassandra), and we thought this could be a great opportunity to learn:

• What options are out there (open source and commercial)
• What they’re good for (based on use cases and write/read traffic)
• What it’s like working with them (code examples, ops costs etc.)

Michael Miller from Cloudant (YC S08) will be on hand to discuss CouchDB and their commercial offering, Eric Peters from Frugal Mechanic (Founders Co-op) will talk about Cassandra, and Ted Neward, principal at Neward and Associates and an author of several technical books, will delve into MongoDB.

Mike is an Assistant Professor of Physic at UW and cofounder of Cloudant (YCombinator, summer 2008). Cloudant is an integrated data management, search, and analytics engine that fundamentally changes the way businesses, from startups to large enterprises, manage and analyze data. Cloudant sprouted from the founders experience and frustrations with building globally distributed systems to manage the world’s largest data sets for science. The company was spun out of MIT, received seed funding from YCombinator, closed Series A venture funding 6 months after inception and is now actively growing first revenues.

Coming soon. In the meantime, check out Frugal Mechanic.

Ted Neward is the Principal with Neward & Associates, where he specializes in high-scale enterprise systems, working with clients ranging in size from Fortune 500 corporations to small 20-person shops. He speaks on the conference circuit, including the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposium tour, discussing Java, .NET and XML service technologies, focusing on Java-.NET interoperability, programming languages, and virtual machine technologies. He has written several widely-recognized books in both the Java and .NET space, including the recently-released “Effective Enterprise Java”, and the forthcoming “Professional F#”. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Logistics:

• When: 7-9pm
• Where: The Douglas Forum at the Executive Education Center, University of Washington (see below).
• Cost: Free; no registration

Future Meeting Dates:

• March 10, 2010 (Wednesday): Topic TBD
• April 7, 2010 (Wednesday): Topic TBD
• May 12, 2010 (Wednesday): Topic TBD

Interested in speaking at an upcoming event?

• Please email chuck.groom [gmail.com] and goberoi [gmail.com] with: the topic of your talk, 2-3 sentences describing the talk, and 2-3 sentences of your biography.
• Please see the speaking guidelines

FAQ

• Who comes? Usually 40-70 people show up; see the list of who comes.
• How often? Meetings are once a month
• How long? 2 hours, followed by conversation over beers at a nearby pub.
• Who may come? Open to founders and employees of technology startups, or anyone interested in becoming involved with tech startups.
• What is the agenda? The first hour includes one or two pre-arranged presentations, followed by an hour of less structured conversation. (Brainstormed list of discussion topics)

STS meetings happen at the Douglas Forum at the Executive Education Center, University of Washington.

From NE 45th St. headed east, turn right onto Memorial Way. Take your first left on Stephens Way. The Executive Education Center is on your right hand side as you proceed. After a block the road starts to curve... and that’s where you’ll find the Executive Education Center.

From within the Center, head to the fourth floor, and enter the Douglas Forum Conference Room.

• Directions From The east
• Directions from downtown/south
• From the north
• See campus map below. Look for the red circle.

Parking

• Being eco-minded types, we recommend public transit if at all possible. UW is a good bus hub.
• On campus parking is $5.00. This is probably easiest and cheapest. Best lots to park at are N1, N4, and N5.
• Street lots are available off of 15th Ave NE, but costs vary unknown.
• You can find street parking in the evenings for free, but it can be limited. Your best bet is to park near NE 45th St. and 15th Ave NE.

More recent meeting have been recorded, and posted online. See videos of STS meetings

• Feb, 2010
• Jan, 2010
• Nov, 2009
• Oct, 2009
• Sept, 2009
• Aug, 2009
• July, 2009
• June, 2009
• May, 2009
• April, 2009
• Mar, 2009
• Feb, 2009
• Jan, 2009
• Dec, 2008
• Nov, 2008
• Oct, 2008
• Sept, 2008
• August, 2008
• July, 2008
• June, 2008
• May, 2008
• Apr, 2008
• Mar, 2008
• Jan, 2008
• Oct, 2007
• Nov 7, 2006
• Oct 3, 2006
• Sept 7, 2006
• Aug 1, 2006
• July 11, 2006
• June 22, 2006

We want people to continue discussing and sharing information outside the meeting times! Please read over and contribute to the public forums.

Click here for a list of other similar organizations and events.

This site is structured as a wiki so everyone can contribute. It’s all publically editable, except for this first page.

Chuck Groom and Gaurav Oberoi, founders of Precision Polling